Derek H. Leonhart
History Childhood and Teens As a child, Derek was blessed with a rather large family, which would only grow with time. Showing serious talent in the sciences -- biology in particular -- he was seemingly fated to be one of the best and brightest biologists of the times, picking up concepts and information with astounding speed because of one simple fact -- he enjoyed it. However, the obsession his father, Peter, showed with the UNSC began to affect Derek's life. Sooner rather than later, Peter made it clear to Derek that he was going to enlist, and despite his mother, Annie, attempting to intervene and allow Derek to do what he felt he wanted to, Derek was sent to the UNSCMC under threat of being disowned and cut off. Ready but Not Willing Despite his heart not being in it, Derek made it through boot with relative ease, proving himself more than capable of standing with the rest when all was said and done. After two years seeing relatively little action save small-scale skirmishes with Insurrectionist Forces where he was stationed on Reach, he became a Scout Sniper, spending three years in their ranks and five years total under his belt as a Marine. Most of the combat he saw thereafter continued to be on Reach, where he operated against local insurgent forces in various capacities. Capture and Defection Eventually, operating in two-man teams became a detriment when he and his spotter found themselves ambushed and engaged by a full-fledged squad of insurgents during one of many ops. Despite attempting to fight off the enemy, his spotter was killed -- later he would be told that his death was accidental and regrettable -- and Derek was knocked unconscious by the sheer impact of a nearby IED. He spent two months in captivity, but it was an enlightening captivity. There he learned the truth about Reach's elite. Most of the men and women who controlled the planet weren't UNSC -- they were simply rich people who made their money from the suffering of others. There were too many powerful people with too much power for any legal action to be taken, so instead they continued to feed on the weak and defenceless beneath them, kicking aside the ladders that might be used to come up to their level so that they and only they were at the top. By the time a second group was sent to the recently-discovered Insurrection base to clear out any hostiles and bring back any captured personnel, Derek was long gone, having been given back his freedom, his weapons, and issued a mission. One that would drive him for the next four years. One-Man Crusade Under the pseudonym "Thane", Derek launched what the media described as a "dark reckoning" against those who had let themselves rise on the backs of the impoverished and downtrodden, killing more than he spared. With each attack, he ruthlessly killed security personnel without much thought, offering the elite a simple choice -- return to the city what they owed or be killed. Despite many close calls, Thane was never caught. Gun for Hire Eventually, there had to be an end. It came only when all of the names had been crossed off his list one way or another, and when it did, Derek reached out once more to his family. When he did, he discovered the premature death of his father due to a number a health complications, and the truth was that was something he couldn't bring himself to feel sorrow for. He quickly became involved in the lives of his sister, Maria, and her husband, Foley. He took a job at a PMC known to non-members only as "X" as something between a hitman and an assassin, dropping his vigilante-associated name and being christened another name that managed to stick much longer. Taking inspiration from a few rather obscure assassins, both fictional and real, he became known as "Worker". About halfway through his career, ONI caught on, coming after him with an implacable determination. X never gave him up, but he took it upon himself to play a sort of game with the agents on his tail. It didn't end well. Worker's entire team was killed one by one until he was the last man standing, and at the end, while ONI did give up its chase when he went dark, Derek learned a valuable lesson. One that had cost the lives of people he had known and grown to love. X's psychoanalysts eventually diagnosed him with a high risk for Stockholm's and a "unique" form of psychopathy (further detailed under Personality). Loss and Reckoning His career as an assassin continued even once his team was killed, and he became used to either operating alone or in teams with fellow hired guns, learning to distance himself from a constant team in order to keep himself detached and prevent himself from acting irrationally in the heat of the moment. Only just before he joined a three-man killing team with assassins Ausar and Variable did things finally, truly change for him. An experimental warship created by an independent faction was hijacked and crashed into the city his family was living in -- Solace. Though much of the city remained intact, the residential districts and the UNSC's symbol of power in the city, which was known simply as the Citadel, were destroyed, taking the lives of everyone who mattered to him but one. His niece, Malia, who he'd never though he'd have to take in despite being named as godfather, was the sole survivor, having been sent to a park for the day with a friends' family. Soon, a new employer who went by the name of Matthews acquired his services, and this time it was personal. The ONI-funded pseudo-military project that Matthews directed him at was the same one that had been implicated in the Solace incident, and Worker was more than happy to start killing. Over the course of a year, Worker and his team killed more than half the operatives to ever be recruited into the faction. This stopped only when Worker was ordered to let himself get captured to initiate the second phase of Matthews' plan. Capture and Defection, the Sequel When he was captured, though, once again he learned. He cooperated, as he had been instructed by Matthews, but was tortured regardless, and nearly killed. It wasn't pretty. Flash cloning managed to make the worst of it a thing of the past, and all that remained of his pain was the pale mess of scars on his right hand. However, it was an experience that would stick with him for the rest of his life. When he was recovering from his torture, ONI agents visited him. It wasn't that he was terribly important. Rather, one of those agents had been part of the team sent to apprehend Thane so long ago, and during his imprisonment, they'd successfully made the connection. Instead of apprehending him, though, ONI elected to use him for their own purposes. The agents revealed to him that he had been duped; it had not been this group that had killed nearly everything that had meant anything to him. Rather, Matthews' own second-in-command had taken control of the ship and crashed into Solace. This same man, Harper, had been Worker's regular supplier during his fight against this faction, and conveniently, Matthews' second had both an ex-lover and a brother fighting him -- this whole conflict had been personal for him, as personal as it had been for Worker, if not more so. Either Derek was fucked up in the head or just plain insane; once he was released, he took his torturer, Violet, and the two assets with him to kill Harper. Though Harper used experimental technology to prolong the conflict that followed, Harper was ultimately killed through Worker's efforts. He and Violet became lovers soon after, and he attempted to stay as long as he could. Though he remained with Violet for some time, eventually, he broke away, choosing to create a new life for himself with his goddaughter. Drifting For roughly six years, Derek and Malia moved from place to place as Derek struggled to hold down any kind of job that didn't have to do with killing. Even though his time with X had made him a rather wealthy person, with time, his funds ran out. Re-enlistment and Selection for SPARTAN-IV Augmentation In 2557, Derek re-enlisted into the Marine Corps. Unbeknownst to him, his record as Thane and Worker had been linked to his identity despite ONI deliberately not coming after him, and his impressive track record was enough to garner him attention from the S-IV Program. He accepted. Upon integration into the S-IV program, he was informed of the reason for being chosen. This was swiftly followed by Derek cutting a deal with ONI to erase what they had on him as Thane and Worker, which ONI agreed to -- he wasn't too important in the grand scheme of things, and ultimately, it got them one more supersoldier, and one with a hell of a track record. UNSC Infinity Service Derek's service aboard the UNSC Infinity ''was rather uneventful, for the most part. Despite spending months on the ship, he was only ever deployed as a single operative, mainly for the purposes of assassination or recon. Though this was plainly due to the fact that his handler was playing to his strengths, this did keep him off the radar and out of trouble for most of his operational history. The only time he started becoming known to the other SPARTANs was during the Covenant-Promethan joint boarding on the ''Infinity, at which point Derek aided NEVSPECWAR/Group Seven in their efforts to hold the ship, though even then he kept socializing to a minimum. Eventually, he requested a transfer to the group, as well that a team be assembled -- though he was one of the best there were at range, he much preferred to operate in a more fulfilling manner: boots on the ground with people like him, facing the enemy where they could face him. Maybe it was insanity to want risk when guaranteed safety was supplied, but a team was quickly put together anyhow, only having mere days to get to know one another before Group Seven was ordered to transfer to another ship. Personality Derek has been diagnosed with "psychopathy" -- even with the lack of consistency in the term, the distinct detachment and lack of emotion he has displayed throughout his early life was enough to convince psychologists that there was something wrong with him. However, his condition appears to be somewhat controlled. With the right people and at the right time, he can form attachments that should be impossible for people like him. X's psychologist went so far as to call him unique when she witnessed him with his goddaughter. His defining characteristics, though, seem to be pragmatism and an extremely direct approach. Despite being a masterful manipulator when he allows himself to stay detached from a given situation, he prefers to say things as they are rather than they should be. Realism tends to be an overarching theme with most conversations he has. Skills Derek's M99 Stanchion is death in a sexy rifle-shaped package, firing specially designed rounds at several times the speed of sound. The round itself is capable of ripping through flesh, bone, armor, and even entire buildings alike, the muzzle velocity ensuring that leading a target isn't necessary at all. A specially installed power adjuster on the coilgun allows the SPARTAN to reduce the kick, power, and velocity of the weapon as necessary, whether the purpose is to reduce lethality, the side effects normally created by such a powerful sonic boom, or simply to allow it to be used at a closer range. His lethality isn't entirely credited to his weapon, though. Even without the M99, Derek has proven himself a capable operator with all BR- models and most shotguns. His constant sense of paranoia is an advantage when it comes to combat when outnumbered, as his attention is constantly on everything at once, tracking multiple targets and analyzing immediate threats without a break in concentration. Appearance When deployed to the UNSC Infinity, Derek was issued a grey set of Stalker armor, with strange "Forerunner experimental tech" bullshit shoulders that he was pretty sure the tech guys were just trying to screw with him about, and an Enforcer helmet. This, however, was traded up for the Hunter variant eventually. During his time as an assassin, he had grown accustomed to the use of sensors around his helmet to create a 360-degree-vision HUD, and had become uncontrollably agitated when wearing his issued armor due to the unabating and unreasonably paranoid concept that someone was watching him. This got to the point that he might have been discharged on the basis of mental instability if it weren't for the fact that someone in administration decided the problem could be better dealt with than to throw away a potential asset. Thus, when the Hunter armor became an option, it was given to him instead, the Hunter variant's sensor suite—implemented in the armor's helmet—enhancing situational and threat awareness to the user. Though this wasn't exactly the eyes in the back of his head he would have preferred, the sensor suite was enough to satisfy him. Preferred Equipment The fuckin' M99 gauss, bitch. He doesn't mind any of the BR- models, and can hold his own with a shotgun, though he shines at long range. No matter what the situation, however, Derek prefers the Active Camouflage module, constantly falling back on its near-perfect invisibility to both set up kills and get out of hairy situations. Trivia *Derek as a character has rolled through two other roleplay sites -- once as Thane and once as Worker. *He has always worn black armor for the sake of passive camouflage, mainly because most of his operations took place at night. *Every one of his three names is a part of or a reference to another character in media, the character himself having initially adopting the skills, tendencies, and, rarely, motivations of the characters referred to before evolving into his own person. Gallery Category:SPARTAN-4s Category:Rem Sylven